Monday, February 09, 2009

Ctrl+Alt+Schift+H used to give us Hippos, but for a while now they have been removed. A petition has started on the Jira to return the Hippos to their rightful place. Soft Linden has promised to Fix this when 1000 people have voted. Vote Now!

Why Hippos? The hippopotamus has long been a kind of unofficial mascot of Second Life. Learn more about it on the wiki. Hippos!

Update: Friday February 13th:

When we posted the original message only 5 days ago, there where only 250 votes. In just those 5 days 750 people rallied in a show of love for the hippopotamus, which made us reach our goal of 1000 votes. Soft linden has answered, and is at work to make sure the Hippos will come back in to our lives.

This effort might seem whimsical and silly. In some ways it might be, but it is also sign that people don't want to lose the fun that is or was Second Life. The Hippo as a mascot was a creation by early residents of SL together with Linden Lab. For many people it still stands for the fun, creativity and endless possibilities that is Second Life.

Hamlet wrote about it on his blog as well. He and his commentators make some excellent points about why this was rallied behind so quickly. It basically boils down to this, this was a emotional vote for a feature that is extremely easily implemented and most of all we had the promise of Soft Linden to champion this if we reached a 1000 votes. A feature that can't break anything and we knew we have the influence to make the difference, made the difference, so to say.

As compared to other feature requests or bug fixes, our votes do matter. It is not that our opinions don't matter on the other issues, it is just that LL wants those other issues just as much fixed as we do. But those issues are complex and take a lot of work, our votes can at most only give a indication of what needs to worked on first. This is radicaly different for our Hippos.